does it exhibit, but one continued fcene of villanies? Creus Carbo plundered of the public money by his own treasurer, a conful ftripped and betrayed, an army deferted and reduced to want, a province robbed, the civil and religious rights of a people violated.

6. The employment he held in Afia Minor and Pamphylia, what did it produce, but the ruin of those countries, in which houses, cities and temples were robbed by him. What was his conduct in his prætorthip here at home? Let the plundered tem ples, and the public works, neglected, that he might embezzle the money intended for carrying them on, bear witnels, But his pretorship in Sicily crowns all his works of wickedness, and furnishes a lafting monument to his infamy. .

7. The mifchiefs done by him in that country, during the three years of his iniquitous administration, are fuch, that many years, under the wifett and beft of prætors, will not be fufficient to restore things to the condition in which be found them.

8. For it is notorious, that during the time of his tyranny, the Sicilians neither enjoyed the protection of their original laws, of the regulations made for their benefit by the Roman feaate upon their coming under the protection of the commonwealth, nor of the natural or unalienable rights of men.

9. His nod has decided all caufes in Sicilly thefe three years; and his decifions have broken all law, all precedent, all right. The fums he has by arbitrary taxes and unheard of impofitions extorted from the induftrious poor, are not to be computed. The most faithful allies of the commonwealth have been treated as enemies.

10. Roman citizens have, like flaves, been put to death with tortures. The most atrocious criminals, for money, have been exempted from deferved punishments; and men of the mot unexceptionable characters condemned and banished unheard.

II. The harbors, though fufficiently fortified, and the gates of ftrong towns, opened to pirates and ravagers; the foldicy and failors belonging to a province under the protection of the commonwealth, ftarved to death; whole fleets, to the great detriment of the province, fuffered to perish; the ancient monuments of either Sicilian or Roman greatnefs, the ftatues of heroes and princes, carried off; and the temples tripped of their images.

12. The infamy of his lewdnefs has been fuch as decency

forbids me to defcribe; nor will I, by mentioning particulars, put thefe unfortunate perfons to fresh pain, who have not been able to fave their wives and daughters from impurity.

13. And these his atrocious crimes have been committed in fo public a manner, that there is no one who has heard of his name, but could reckon op his actions. Having, by his iniqui tous fentences, fi led the prifons with the most induftrious and deferving of the people, he then proceeded to order numbers of Roman citizens to be ftrangled in the goals; fo that the exclamation, "I am a citizen of Rome," which has often, in the moft diftant regions, and among the most barbarous people, been a protection, was of no fervice to them, but on the contrary, brought a fpeedier and more fevere punishment upon them.

14. I afk now, Verres, what you have to advance against this charge? Will you pretend to deny it? Will you pretend that any thing falfe, that even any thing aggravated is alledg ed againft you? Had any prince, or any ftate committed the fame outrage against the privilege of Roman citizens, should we not think we had sufficient ground for declaring immediate war against them.

15. What punishment then ought to be inflicted upon a ty rannical and wicked prætor, who dared, at no greater diftance than Sicilly, within fight of the Italian coaft, to put to the infamous death of crucifixion, that unfortunate and innocent citizen, Publious Gavious Colanus, only for his having afferted his privilege of his citizenship, and declared his intention of appeal ing to the juftice of his country against a cruel oppreffor, who had unjustly confined him in prison, at Syracufe, from whence he had juft made his efcape.

16. The unhappy man, arrested as he was going to embark for his native country, is brought before the wicked prætor. With eyes darting fury, and a countenance diftorted with cruelty, he orders the helpless victim of his rage to be stripped, and rods to be brought; accufing him, but without the leaft fhadow of evidence, or even of fufpicion, of having come to Si cily as a fpy

The

17. It was in vain the unhappy man cried out-" I am a Roman Citizen-I have ferved under Lucius Pretius, who s now at Panormus, and will atteft my innocence." blood thirty prætor, deaf to all he could urge in his own defence, ordered the infamous punishment to be inflicted. Thus Fathers, was an innocent Roman citizen publicly mangled with

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fcourging; whilft the only words he uttered amid his cruel fuffering ags, were," I am a Roman citizen !"

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18. With these he hoped to defend himfelf from violence and infamy but of fo little fervice was this privilege to him, that while he was thus afferting his citizenship, the order was given for his execution for his execution upon the cross!

19. O liberty!-O found, once delightful to every-Roman ear -O facred privilege of Roman citizenship! once facred, now trampled upon! But what then? Is it come to this?

20. Shall an inferior magiftrate, a governor who holds his own power of the Roman people, in a Roman province, within fight of Italy, bind, fcourge, torture with fire and red hot plates of iron, and at lalt put to the infamous deata of the cross a Roman citizen?

21. Shall neither the cries of innocence, expiring in agony, nor the tears of pitying fpectators, nor the majelty of the Roman commonwealth, nor the fear of the juftice of his country, reltrain the licentious and wanton cruelty of a monster, who in confidence of his riches, ftrikes at the root of liberty, and fets mankind at defiance?

22. I conclude with expreffing my hopes, that your wildom and justice, fathers, will not, by suffering the atrocious and unexampled infolence of Caius Verres to escape the due punishment, leave room to apprehend the danger of a total fubverfion of authority, and introduction of general anarchy and confufion.

SPEECH of CANULES, a Roman tribute, to the Confuls; in which he demands that the Plebeians may be admitted into the Confulfhip; and that the Law prohibiting Patricians and Plebeians from intermarrying, may be repealed.

I.

・WPA PAT an infult upon us is this! If we are not fo rich

as they

as the Patricians, are we not citizens of Rome as well inhabitants of the fame country? members of the fame community? The nations bordering upon Rome and even ftrangers more remote, are admitted not only to marriages with us, but to what is of much greater importance, the freedom of the city.

2. Are we because we are commoners, to be worse treated than ftrangers and when we demand that the people may be free to beltow their offices and dignities on whom they please, do we ask any thing unreasonable or new? Do we claim more

than their original inherent right? What occafion then for all this uproar, as if the univerfe was falling to ruin? They were just going to kay violent hands upon me in the fenate house.

3. What must this empire then, be unavoidably overturn. ed? Mult Rome of neceflity fink at once, if a Plebeian, worthy of that office, fhould be raifed to the consulfhip? The Patri cians, I am perfuaded, if they could, would deprive you of the common light.

4. It certainly offends them that you breathe, that you speak, that you have the thapes of men Nay, but to make a conmoner a conful, would be, fay they, a moit enormous thing. Numa Pompilius, however, without being fo much as a Roman citizen was made king of Rome.

5. The elder Tarquin, by birth not even Italian, was neverthelefs placed upon the throne. Servius Tullius, the fon of a captive woman, (nobody knows who his father was) obtained the kingdom as the reward of his wildom and virtue

6. In those days, no man, in whom virtue thone confpicuous, was rejected or defpifed on account of his race and defcent. And did the ftate profper the lefs for that? Were not thefe ftrangers the very beft of our kings? And fuppofing now, that a Plebeian fhould have their talents and merit, mult not he be fuffered to govern us?

7. But we End, that upon the abolition of the regal pow. er, no commoner was chofen to the confolate." And what of that? Before Numa's time, there were no pontiffe in Rome. Before Servius Tullus' days there was no cenfus, no divifion of the people into claffes and centuries. Who ever heard of con. fuls before the expulfion of Tarquin the proud? Dictators, we all know, are of modern invention; and fo are the offices of tribunes, ædiles, quæfore.

8. Within thefe ten years we have made decemvirs, and we have unmade them. Is nothing to be done but what has been done before? That very law, forbidding marriages of Patri cians and Plebeiens, is not that a new thing? Was there any fuch law before the decemvirs coated it? And a moft,hameful one it is in a free Rate.

9. Such marriages, it feems, will taint the pure blood of the nobility! Why, if they think so, let then take care to match their filters and daughters with men of their own sort. No Plebeian will do violence to the daughter of a Patrician. Those are exploits for our prize nobles.

10. There is no need to fear that we fhall force any body

into a contrast of marriage. But to make an exprefs law to prohibit marriage of Patricians with Plebeians, what is this but to fhow the utmolt contempt of us, and to declare one part of the community to be impure and unclean?

12. They talk to us of the confufion there will be in fami li- if this ftatute fhould be repealed. I wonder they don't make a law againit a commoner's living near a nobleman, or going the fame road that he is going, or being prefent at the fame fealt, or appearing at the fame market place,

12. They might as well pretend that thefe things make confufion in families, at that intermarriages will do it. Does not every one know that their children will be ranked "according to the quality of the father, let him be a Patrician or a Plebeian? In thort it is mazifet enough that we have noth.. ing in view but to be treated as men and citizens; nor can they who oppofe our demand, have any motive to do it, but the love of domineering.

13. I would fain know of you, Confuls and Patricians, is the fovereign power in the people of Rome, or in you? I hope you will allow, that the people can at their pleature, either make a law or repeal one.

14. And will you, then, as foon as any law is propofed to them, pretend to them immediately for the war, and hinder them from giving their inffrages by leading them into the field? 15. Here me Confuls. Whether the news of the war you talk of be true, or whether it only be a falfe rumor fpread abroad for nothing but a colour to fend the people out of the city, I declare as tribune, that this people who have already fo often fpilt their blood in our country's caufe, are again ready to arm for its defence and its glory, if they may be restored to their natural rights, and you will no longer treat us like rangers in Our own country,

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16. But if you account us unworthy of your alliance by ins termarriages, if you will not fuffer the entrance to the chief of fices in the itate to be open to all perfons of merit indifferently, ut will confine your choice of magiftrates to the fenate alone; talk of wars as much as ever you pleafe; paint, in your ordine. У difcourfes, the league and power of cur enemies, ten times ore dreadful than you do now, I declare, that this people hom you fo much defpife, to whom you are nevertheless inebted for all your victories, fhall never more enlift themfelves ot a man of them fhall take arms! not a man of them fall